The 11th hour lawmaking Wednesday was a show not quite worthy of P.T. Barnum, the circus promoter who ran for Congress in 1867 — and lost. Congress's circus only has two rings.

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified a senator speaking at the press conference on the effects of the government shutdown.

WASHINGTON — The first to appear were the photographers.

Some waited by the entrances to the Capitol, waiting for lawmakers to show up for work on the 16th day of a government shutdown and the day before the Treasury was set to run out of borrowed money.

Others stalked the offices of Sens. Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, the Democratic and Republican leaders, and of House Speaker John Boehner, looking for any hint of activity. (House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's arrival went undocumented, though she later allowed a photographer into her meeting with House Democratic leaders.)

The 11th-hour lawmaking that accompanies every congressional spending and debt deadline brings a level of absurdity commensurate to the crisis. The result Wednesday was a show not quite worthy of P.T. Barnum, the circus promoter who ran for Congress in 1867 — and lost. Congress' circus only has two rings.

Two House committees were at work early — early being 9:30 a.m. — to hold a joint hearing on the closing of national parks and monuments during the shutdown.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings said he wanted to "get to the bottom of when and how all these arbitrary decisions were made and by whom."

"Let me save you some time," he said. "Our national park system is surprisingly part of our national government, which you shut down. And I'm going to demonstrate, if the Republican side will look at me, I will show you who's responsible."

In a theatrical flourish he scripted the night before, DeFazio held up a mirror a staffer brought from home. "Right here, here you are. Here is who's responsible for shutting down the national parks and memorials."

In a Senate building on the other side of the Capitol, three Democratic senators — Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii — held a news conference to highlight the "real-world impacts and how local communities across the country are suffering."

They invited five people to speak, including two lobbyists and a trade association president. One of them was Kirk Bailey, a lobbyist for the Outdoor Industry Association, which represents the $646 billion recreation industry. He said kayak sales were down 80% in the first week of the shutdown.

Reporters asked Boxer about banking reform, the Environmental Protection Agency and gerrymandering. She used the opportunity to expound on how things used to get done when she was in the House and then-Speaker Tip O'Neil would use Republican and Democratic votes to get to a majority of the 435-member body.

"The magic of Tip O'Neil was the magic of 218," she said.

As it became clear that a deal to end the shutdown was emerging, House conservatives lamented that they didn't have the 218 votes to keep the fight going.

The monthly "Conversations with Conservatives," sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, turned into a pre-postmortem as conservatives blamed House GOP leadership, House moderates, Senate Republicans, President Obama and the media for their defeat.

Senate Republicans "spent more time attacking those who are fighting Obamacare than actually joining in that battle. That's pretty disappointing," said Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan. "There probably are a lot of senators, and perhaps a number of House members, who are going to garner primary opposition for their lack of principled opposition to Obamacare."

Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, agreed, accusing Senate Republicans of "going to the media and whining about how difficult this is."

"Apparently some people didn't come here to do the hard things," he said.

The media unfairly portrayed House Republicans as hostage-takers, said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. "We had 14 votes where we funded all or part of the government. Yet we're the ones with bombs on our chest and all that."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., usually garrulous and often quotable, attracted a crowd of a dozen reporters. He talked openly about the divisions within the Republican party, lamenting a "form of conservatism that has gone beyond what the market will bear."

Almost on cue, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, walked behind him, carrying a paper cup. The reporters peeled off Graham and began to follow like minnows, chasing him past the minority leader's office. "Will you filibuster?" a reporter shouted. Cruz offered nothing, but by the time he made it to his meeting, the minnows had become a stampede.

The reporters, turning around, rediscovered Graham, who picked up right where he had left off. "This has been a very bad two weeks for the Republican brand, for conservatism," Graham said.

Cruz finally spoke to reporters near the Ohio Clock at about 12:14 p.m. At least, it might have been 12:14. The 198-year-old clock, a fixture outside the Senate chamber since 1859, has been stuck on 12:14 for a week because the curators responsible for winding it have been furloughed during the shutdown.

"Senator, a two-part question here. Number one, will you filibuster?" a reporter asked.

"What's the second part?" Cruz said. The second part was also about whether he would filibuster.

No, Cruz said, there was nothing to be gained from delaying a vote.

Throngs of reporters, lawmakers and tourists collided in the hallways throughout the morning. Greta, an almost 4-year-old girl from Minnesota with a frilly purple shirt and short curly hair, walked up to Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who leaned down to talk to her.

"Everybody's afraid of senators," Isakson said, walking off to his meeting.

Boehner sparked a minor midday kerfuffle when he stopped outside his Capitol Hill office to greet a group of eighth-graders from Indiana. A horde of reporters waiting for Senate Republicans to emerge from a closed-door meeting spotted the House speaker across the Capitol Rotunda and raced over, thinking he was about to make comments about the latest effort to resolve the fiscal crisis. Instead he just gave the eighth-graders a thumbs-up and quickly retreated into his office.

Senate President Pro Tem Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pounded his gavel at noon, and Senate Chaplain Barry Black opened with a prayer.

"Lord, we see a faint light at the end of a long, dark tunnel," said the Seventh-day Adventist and retired Navy admiral. "Lord, keep them from making any decision that will seem reckless in the sober light of hindsight. We pray in your mighty name. Amen."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called Black "a voice of stability" and waited for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to show up so they could announce the deal together on the Senate floor. As they spoke, a sort of congratulations caucus appeared in the chamber. Senators who usually speak only to the C-SPAN cameras actually had two dozen colleagues sitting in their seats.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., walked across the aisle to hug Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. "If there is a good outcome, it is the fact that 14 of us were able to join together, Republican and Democrat — leadership I must fully admit was provided primarily by women in the Senate. I won't comment further on that," McCain said.

"About five days ago, I was wondering why I came to the United States Senate. I had the same belief that the American people had: This is a place that no longer is funking," said Heitkamp, who later corrected "funking" to functioning."

"And then an amazing thing happened," Heitkamp continued. That amazing thing, Heitkamp said, was "regular order" — Congress-speak for the way the process is supposed to work.

The self-congratulations continued through the voting, which was accompanied by more than the usual amount of back-slapping, arm-grabbing and thumbs-upping. Even the 18 senators who voted against the deal seemed relieved. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, (yea) and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., (nay) gave each other a double-barreled fist bump.

The bill then went over the the House, which approved it anticlimactically and with votes to spare. The biggest drama came when an official House stenographer had to be escorted off the House floor after a bizarre outburst.

"He will not be mocked.! Don't touch me!" she shouted, approaching the dais and grabbing a microphone. "The biggest deception here is, this is not 'One nation under God.' It never was. The Constitution would never have been written by Freemasons. You cannot serve two masters."